Investors with money in the popular Jupiter Merlin funds have had some of their assets entrusted to Neil Woodford's new fund, Woodford Equity Income, which has now grown to more than £2bn.

The Jupiter Merlin range consists of "multi-manager" funds – in other words, the manager chooses other funds in which to put his investors' money, rather than picking individual shares.

The Merlin funds are managed by the respected investor John Chatfeild-Roberts and his team. Three of the funds, Jupiter Merlin Income, Growth and Balanced, now have holdings in Woodford Equity Income, although the size of the holdings is not disclosed.

But Mr Chatfeild-Roberts has retained holdings in the Invesco Perpetual funds formerly managed by Mr Woodford and now run by Mark Barnett.

Mr Chatfeild-Roberts said: “We were very happy investors for many years in Neil Woodford’s funds while he worked at Invesco Perpetual and have supported him in his new venture. Woodford Equity Income has been purchased for the Jupiter Merlin Growth, Jupiter Merlin Balanced and Jupiter Merlin Income portfolios.

"We also have made significant investments with his ex-colleague Mark Barnett. We believe that both Neil and Mark are very talented long-term investors and are excited about the potential returns they could generate for our portfolios and, as a result, our investors.”

The Jupiter Merlin Income fund currently holds £4.7bn of investors' money. It splits its money between equity, bond and other funds and cash. According to the fund's factsheet for June, published today, 45pc of its money is in UK equity funds, 31.9pc in bond funds, 19.1pc in others, which include a gold fund and a global equity income fund, and 4pc in cash.

Mr Woodford started investing the money in his new fund on June 19 and Mr Chatfeild-Roberts invested before the end of June. The Woodford fund is still attracting money steadily from investors and has now grown to £2.2bn.

It has attracted money from other "multi-manager" funds, including £400m from the Hargreaves Lansdown multi-manager range.